Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [109]
“You’re close. It is ‘four score and seven years ago.’”
Gabby developed a great ability to sum up hospital food. “What did you have for lunch today?” I asked her one evening.
“Warm juice. Meat salad,” she said, and then she burst out laughing.
We saw that Gabby’s long-term memory was excellent. Looking at a photo of a certain female politician, Gabby had a recollection she couldn’t resist sharing. “Man hands,” she said.
Gloria, Spencer, and I had many consultations with doctors, but they couldn’t fully explain the mysteries of the brain. People with serious head injuries all respond in different ways, they said, so it was impossible to fully predict how things would go for Gabby.
A lot of brain-injury patients struggle to understand humor. They may appreciate the slapstick stuff, but anything subtle, including the punch line of a joke, is beyond them.
There are patients who can read but not write. Others can write but they can’t read; they could write a letter to a loved one without a problem, but couldn’t go back to read what they had written.
Some patients understand perfectly everything said to them, but they will never be able to utter a word. Others are the opposite. They can speak normally, but what they hear is gibberish.
In Gabby’s case, as time went on, we saw that her comprehension was nearing 100 percent. She understood jokes, and also found her own ways to be funny, with facial expressions, eye rolls, and a word here or there. She didn’t slur her words, which was a great sign. If people with brain injuries slur their words from the start, the slur usually remains throughout their lives.
Another issue: People who survive a gunshot to the right side of their brain often find that their personality changes drastically. They may have trouble interacting with others. They may be depressed. They may act out inappropriately. Gabby, shot on the left side, was able to retain her personality. We all saw that pretty clearly, and were intensely relieved.
Dong Kim, Gabby’s neurosurgeon at TIRR, explained that what people consider a part of the human soul is actually a series of distinct brain functions. Depending on where people suffer their head traumas, they may become more or less religious, or more or less empathetic. “There are great strides coming in brain science,” Dr. Kim promised. He compared the breakthroughs ahead to the progress made in cardiology in the late 1950s. We could only hope these advances would come in time to help Gabby.
Gabby’s biggest problem, besides the partial paralysis on her right side, was her inability to communicate.
Often, she’d say yes when she meant to say no, or vice versa.
“Gabby, do you want to take a walk?” I’d ask.
“Yes, yes,” she’d say, and when I’d stand up to help her, she’d tell me, “No, no, no!”
She knew what she wanted to say. It’s just that the wrong words came out—often, the opposite of what she wanted to say. For some reason, “no” was much easier for her to say than “yes.”
Carl Josehart, who ran the operation at TIRR, was good at explaining this problem in everyday language. “Think of the brain as a filing cabinet,” he said. “Imagine dumping a lot of the files on the floor and then randomly putting them all back in the cabinet. That is what Gabby is dealing with. When she reaches to say a word, it might be in the wrong folder. She may not even realize right away that she has used the wrong word. But even if she does realize it, she can’t help herself and correct it. She still says the wrong word. And it’s common to get hooked on one word, and to say it over and over again.”
One day, Gabby was saying “no” in response to every question. Her well-meaning father took it upon himself to talk to her about it. “Let me give you some ideas about when you’d use the word ‘yes,’” Spencer said to Gabby, and then he began rattling off situations in which answering “yes” would be appropriate. “For instance, if I asked you if the sky is blue, you’d say ‘yes.’”
Spencer gave her about a dozen examples. “No, no, no,” Gabby said. I could see she was getting upset.
“Not